Collected Poetry and Prose

by Wallace Stevens

Stevens's perennial concern was the role of the artist in the society in which he lives: What is the connection between the imagination and the real world? His conclusion, that the creation of art and the appreciation of beauty provide the source of meaning and order, is also an answer to his other major preoccupation, which is the quest for meaning in a world without God. Stevens's work is private, cerebral, and full of fine discriminations of feeling; it is also characterized by the vast resources of his vocabulary. Many of his poems take the form of theme and variations--most notably his famous work, "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Editions of Collected Poetry and Prose

ISBN

9781883011451

Binding/Format

Hardcover

Publisher

Penguin Group USA

Date

1997

Price

$14.95

Publisher Notes

Here are all of Stevens' published books of poetry, side-by-side for the first time with the haunting lyrics of his later years and early work that traces the development of his art. From the rococo inventiveness of Harmonium, his first volume (including such classics as "Sunday Morning", "Peter Quince at the Clavier", and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"), through "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction", "Esthetique du Mal", "The Auroras of Autumn", and the other large-scale masterpieces of his middle years, to the austere final poems of "The Rock", Stevens' poetry explores with unrelenting intensity the relation between the world and the human imagination, between nature as found and nature as invented, and the ways poetry mediates between them. This volume presents over a hundred poems uncollected by Stevens, including early versions of often discussed works like "The Comedian as the Letter C" and "Owl's Clover". Also here is the most comprehensive selection available of Stevens' prose writings. The Necessary Angel (1951), his distinguished book of essays, joins nearly fifty shorter pieces, many previously uncollected: reviews, speeches, short stories, criticism, philosophical writings, and responses to the work of Eliot, Moore, Williams, and other poets. The often dazzling aphorisms Stevens gathered over the years are included, as are his plays and selections from his poetic notebooks. Rounding out the volume is a fifty-year span of journal entries and letters, newly edited from manuscript sources, which provide fascinating glimpses of Stevens' thoughts on poetry and the creative process.

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